pHacktory Partners Help Bring Curiosity and Audacious Discovery to
Ottawa

OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today pHacktory is proud to announce their founding partners who will
help bring audacious science and discovery to the Nation’s
Capital—Shopify, the Canada Science and Technology Museum, the
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and RobotMissions.org.

pHacktory began when award-winning scientist, professor, and TED Fellow
Andrew Pelling asked one simple question: “What would happen if I put my
lab on the street?”

“pHacktory could not exist without the help and support of our founding
partners,” said Andrew Pelling, founder, pHacktory. “These organizations
are embracing our audacious experiment and we are thrilled by their
trust and courage.”

As Canada approaches its 150th birthday in 2017, Ottawa is
poised to be a centre of innovation and creativity. pHacktory is proud
to represent the community and hopes to spread its spirit of boundless
imagination across the country.

"Shopify is excited to be a founding partner of pHacktory,” said Tobi
Lütke, founder and CEO, Shopify. “This is an amazing project that will
benefit the city of Ottawa and the rest of Canada. I can't wait to see
what comes out of it!"

pHacktory is a street-level research lab developing projects based on
curiosity-driven proposals solicited from the community. By partnering
with pillars of the community on projects supporting their areas of
expertise, pHacktory is creating space for science, discovery, and
creativity.

“You never know where great ideas will come from!” said Alex Munter,
President and Chief Executive Officer of the Children's Hospital of
Eastern Ontario. “CHEO is proud to partner with pHacktory so that,
together, we can find ideas that will help kids and families be their
healthiest. Everyone needs health care, so everyone can contribute to
making it better.”

"Our organization is eager to partner with pHacktory on such an exciting
project,” said Alex Benay, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada
Science and Technology Museums Corporation. “Our focus on where the past
meets the future and our willingness to take big risks to achieve big
rewards aligns perfectly with pHacktory's goals. As an institution that
also holds curiosity to such high standards, we are eager to see where
our collaboration takes us next."

Most importantly pHacktory is about curiosity and exploring new ways of
solving problems, a value the founding partners share.

“What excites me about pHacktory is how the common thread of curiosity
will join projects across different fields,” said Erin Kennedy, founder,
RobotMissions.org. “We will be working on audacious projects that
typically would not be supported by a conventional incubator or research
lab. It's the beginning of something new, and we can't wait to get
started.”

The first
bold pHacktory experiment launches on October 1 in the Byward
Market. Led by artist/designer Manuel Baez, and in partnership with the
Canada Science and Technology Museum, pHacktory is going to light up the
sky over Ottawa.

pHacktory will soon be accepting project ideas from across the community
in a number of fields. Stay tuned to http://www.phacktory.com
for details.

About ShopifyShopify is the leading cloud-based,
multi-channel commerce platform designed for small and medium-sized
businesses. Merchants use the software to design, set up and manage
their stores across multiple sales channels, including web, mobile,
social media, marketplaces, brick-and-mortar locations and pop-up shops.
The platform also provides merchants with a powerful back-office and a
single view of their business. The Shopify platform was engineered for
reliability and scale, making enterprise-level technology available to
businesses of all sizes. Shopify currently powers over 300,000
businesses in approximately 150 countries and is trusted by big brands
including Tesla Motors, Budweiser, Red Bull, the LA Lakers, the New York
Stock Exchange, GoldieBlox, and many more.

About CHEOThe Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO)
is Canada’s capital pediatric hospital and helps over 500,000 children
and youth each year. CHEO has more than 2,500 doctors, nurses and staff
dedicated to providing the best possible care for the children and youth
of Eastern Ontario, Western Quebec, Nunavut and parts of Northern
Ontario. CHEO works closely with the University of Ottawa as a teaching
hospital and fosters groundbreaking research through the CHEO Research
Institute. CHEO’s vision is to change young lives in our community,
while our innovation changes young lives around the world.

About the Canada Science and Technology Museums CorporationThe
Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation is Canada’s only
comprehensive science and technology collecting institution.
Headquartered in Ottawa, the Corporation operates three Museums: the
Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum
and the Canada Science and Technology Museum. The Corporation’s mandate
is to preserve Canada’s scientific and technological heritage, while
promoting, celebrating and sharing knowledge of that heritage and how it
affects Canadians’ daily lives. To learn more, visit the Corporation’s website.

About Robot MissionsRobot Missions enables makers and
environmentalists to collaborate on large challenges facing the
environment with the use of a robot platform. We are developing a 3D
printable robot platform to improve the environment in areas of
exploration, object retrieval (ie, collecting trash), and mobile sensor
monitoring. Our first mission is collecting shoreline debris, where we
have embarked on multiple Field Tests in Toronto and Ottawa. RobotMissions.org

About pHacktorypHacktory nurtures curiosity and creativity
through bold research and audacious experimentation. When award-winning
scientist, professor, and TED Fellow Andrew Pelling decided to bring his
idea of street-level research to the community, pHacktory was born.
pHacktory partners with the community to curate bold research projects
across a variety of scientific and artistic disciplines whose only goal
is to spark the imagination and inspire the minds of the future. Visit
us at http://www.phacktory.com.